At Transcription Centre we specialise in transcription of interviews, focus groups and speeches for academics and market researchers primarily in the UK.
Standard terms and conditions of our services are listed below. Contracts are between Transcription Centre (“Transcription Centre”, “we”, “us”, “our”) and the client (“the client”, “you”, “your”).
If you require a signed contract, please contact us to discuss.
DELIVERY OF TRANSCRIPTS
By uploading your audio to our system, you enter into a contract with Transcription Centre and agree to charges related to the transcription of your files. Transcription rates will be agreed between the client and Transcription Centre before beginning work. Quoted turnaround times refer to working days (Monday to Friday) and will be delivered by 5:00 PM. Delivery of transcripts earlier in the day, or on weekends or public holidays may be arranged with our prior consent, otherwise we will move the delivery date on one or two days so that it is not a weekend or bank holiday. We always aim to deliver transcripts by 5:00 PM on the agreed deadline date at the very latest. We cannot, however, accept any liability for loss or damage arising from late delivery of transcripts.
Transcripts uploaded outside of our standard office hours (please note that we close early on Fridays) will be treated as if uploaded on the next working day for turnaround purposes.
CONFIDENTIALITY AND DATA PROTECTION
All work performed by Transcription Centre for the client shall be confidential. Our employees have all signed non-disclosure agreements. Audio files are encrypted during transfer through our online password protected system, ScribeManager, who abide by stringent data protection procedures. We are registered and in compliance with the Data Protection Act.
Transcripts will be sent via ScribeManager, for digital safety we recommend that you choose the option for them not to be attached to emails. You will be alerted to the finished transcript and prompted to download the files from our password encrypted system.
Once finished, any audio files are securely deleted from our encrypted drives within 7 days. Finished transcripts stored on our encrypted drives are securely deleted after no longer than 30 days.
Finished transcripts and the audio files are available on ScribeManager for 67 days after the agreed delivery date. These files are only visible to our directors and the client to whom they belong.
Please note: An email will be sent by the system when the finished transcript is available for download. We recommend that you download and safely store transcripts as soon as possible after you are notified of their completion. We cannot retrieve any documents completed by us and wiped from our systems after 67 days. If you have lost them or not downloaded them before they are wiped and we will not accept responsibility for any loss of data caused this way.
CONTRACTS
We are happy to sign agreements/contracts that our clients wish us to abide by in order to deliver our services. However these agreements must be in place before we start work on the files; we will not sign retrospectively dated agreements after that point.
For further details on our GDPR compliance and what that means for you as a client please read our privacy and security policy.
PRICING
We charge per minute of audio, the system rounds up or down to the nearest minute (note: files under 30 seconds round as one minute). Extra charges for poor audio, full verbatim, multiple speakers will be discussed and confirmed with you before we begin work on any transcripts, we cannot be held responsible for any delay on transcript delivery caused by waiting for this confirmation. We reserve the right to reject any files where the audio is so poor that we won’t be able to produce a useable transcript. We will let you know this is the case on upload after assessment.
If you are an existing client and have already agreed terms with us, we will only contact you for confirmation if there are any extra charges above the usual rate we have already discussed and confirmed.
We can give estimates for quoting purposes given enough information (length, quality, number of speakers, turnaround time) but we will only be able to give firm, final prices on receipt of the audio files to be transcribed. Estimates/quotes are valid for eight weeks.
Our minimum invoice value is £35.
PAYMENT
Invoices are sent upon delivery of transcripts and are payable by credit card, or bank transfer within 15 days of the invoice date.
For new clients, we may request up front payment or payment on a first job/invoice before agreeing to begin any further work.
Work undertaken for solicitors will be charged on receipt of the audio, and work will not be started until payment has cleared in our account. This will be communicated on receipt of the audio.
All transactions must be in GBP unless otherwise agreed in writing before work commences.
All quotes and charges are UK VAT exempt.
We do not accept payment by cheque.
REFUND POLICY
No refunds are available after work has commenced, unless previously agreed in writing by Transcription Centre. If you are not satisfied with the work delivered, we will endeavour to edit the transcript to your satisfaction at no extra charge*.
*Extra charges will be applied if the transcript needs to be edited to/from full verbatim or transferred between templates due to an error made by the client on filling out the upload form. We can produce the same document on two templates for an extra charge to cover the time needed to perform this.
NATURE OF FILES ACCEPTED
We primarily work with academics and market researchers but we welcome all kinds of client to use our services. Please note that for ethical and legal reasons we reserve the right to refuse audio files from covert recordings or police interviews. We cannot certify transcripts for use in court proceedings.
CREDIT ACCOUNTS
We can accept forward payments for transcription and/or proofreading work not yet ordered. Any credit applied to your account will expire after 12 months from payment, unless otherwise agreed beforehand.
We will share a live spreadsheet with you on receipt of the monies so that you can at any point see how much of the credit remains. Credit set up for transcription work can be used against proofreading work and vice versa.
PROOFREADING OF ARTICLES/THESES
Our standard delivery time of one working week will apply, unless stated at the time of submission or unless the proofing work needed is more burdensome than usual, this will be communicated to you as early as possible.
Submissions from individuals must send an official purchase order (PO) from their institution on receipt of the estimate, or pay in advance if this is unfunded. Work will commence only after we have received the PO or payment.
An edited copy of the article/thesis will be sent with tracked changes and comments via WeTransfer (or any suitable and accessible portal stipulated by you or your institution). We offer no guarantee that the changes we have suggested will mean that your article will be approved for publication.